Marcelo in the real world by Francisco X. Stork

Many readers of Stork’s Marcelo in the real worldhave compared his book with The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon.

Marcelo has always been different – he sleeps in a tree house for starters, and then there’s the music he hears that nobody else can hear. Marcelo has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, but his father can’t seem to come to terms with his son’s differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer, insisting that he join “the real world.” There Marcelo encounters all the human dramas, driven by competition, jealousy, anger and desire, and meets the beautiful Jasmine. But it’s a picture he finds in a file – a picture of a girl with half a face – that truly connects him with the real world, when he gets involved in making right what he sees as a definite wrong.

Stork develops Marcelo convincingly and authentically. We feel both close to and alienated from Marcelo’s thoughts in all the appropriate moments, as if he were talking to us in “real” life, and he does come to life through his bluntness, his cumbersome way of speaking, or his black-and-white point of view . This makes us feel for him all the more when he struggles to make sense of unfamiliar surroundings, and work out relationships.

You can also read the author’s blog. It’s interesting to read how difficult the writing process can be even for successful authors. Read Francesco Stork describing what it was like to write Marcelo in the real world.